As the world's largest robot market, China has always been a strategic location for major manufacturers. Even in the case of the industrial robot market as a whole in the second half of 2018, the sales volume of China's collaborative robot market has still achieved nearly 50%. Growth rate.
In recent years, in addition to new energy and intelligent network connection, intelligent manufacturing has also become an important focus in the transformation and transformation of the automotive industry. Therefore, many companies will focus on the "automation rate" when they publicize abroad.
For this reason, in the past few years, the robot industry has shown rapid development. However, due to the impact of the macro environment in 2018, the growth rate has dropped significantly compared to the previous year. According to the data of the Institute of Industrial, Industrial and Robotics Research (GGII), the global industrial robot sales in 2018 were 384,000 units, a year-on-year increase of only 1%.
However, in the case of the overall market pre-cooling, there is still a bright color, that is, collaborative robots with features and advantages such as easy programming, flexible deployment, and high cost performance. According to the relevant data released by GGII, from 2014 to 2018, the average compound growth rate of global collaborative robot sales was 58%, and the sales volume in 2018 was 21,500 units, with a market size of 3.85 billion yuan. It is estimated that by 2021, the global sales of collaborative robots will reach 60,000 units, and the market size will exceed 9.6 billion yuan.
As the world's largest robot market, China has always been a strategic location for major manufacturers. Even in the second half of 2018, when the industrial robot market as a whole was "cold", China's collaborative robot market still achieved nearly 50% of sales throughout the year. % Growth rate.
Recently, Su Yingkai, General Manager of Universal Robots China, the largest collaborative robot supplier with global market share, said in an interview with Gaso that there is still a lot of room for development in the Chinese market. On the one hand, for Chinese companies to maintain competitiveness, especially international competitiveness, investment automation cannot be avoided. On the other hand, from the perspective of the penetration rate of robots, the ratio of Chinese employees to robots is about 100 of 10,000 employees, while in Japan it is about 600 to 700. Therefore, there is still a relatively large growth opportunity for collaborative robot providers.
Regarding the future development of collaborative robots, Universal Robots Global CEO Jürgen von Hollenn added that at present, whether in China or global manufacturing, there are still many "pain points", which also provide space for the development of collaborative robots. The main manifestations are: severe labor shortage; increasing productivity and efficiency encountering bottlenecks; reducing product defects, quality defects, and losses; solving workplace injuries and ergonomic challenges; and reducing production costs.
"In today's uncertain economic environment, manufacturers need to remain competitive by seeking more flexible solutions. China is a very important market, which is why China chose to release our latest product, UR16e, during this year's Industry Fair. The reason. "Jürgen von Hollenn said.
UR16e release site: Pictured on the right is Jürgen von Hollenn, CEO of Universal Robots, pictured on the left is Su Kai, General Manager of Universal Robots China
It is understood that UR16e is a collaborative robot with a payload of up to 16 kg, which is very suitable for performing some heavy-duty automated tasks, such as heavy material handling, heavy parts handling and machine tool management. In addition, this product is also part of Universal Robots' current UR product series Collaborative robot with the highest payload. According to the information, the UR16e has a radius of 900 mm and can be easily integrated into any working environment without changing the original production layout. It is also worth mentioning that, as with other collaborative robots deploying UR, users can usually complete the programming from unpacking, removing the collaborative robot, and installing it for the first time, regardless of whether the user has relevant experience and programming. Knowledge, can quickly complete programming and integration.
"Unioo will continue to promote the possibility of the application of collaborative robots in more fields. We launched UR16e to further empower the manufacturing industry and help each manufacturer to more easily automate and add value to the future." Jürgen von Hollenn said.
In addition, according to reports, Universal Robots launched Universal Robots Academy in 2017, which is completely free of charge, in order to improve customers' specific operation and technical awareness of collaborative robot products. Regarding future technology expansion, Jürgen von Hollenn pointed out that with the advent of the 5G era, Universal Robots will focus on the application of 5G networks in the future.